While Hatteras Island residents and visitors have been preoccupied this year with public hearings on ORV rulemaking and the Bonner Bridge replacement, folks on the northern beaches of Dare County have been having a robust debate about beach nourishment.
Specifically, they have been debating the pros and cons of a proposed 1 percent increase in county occupancy taxes to further fund beach nourishment.
Though perhaps we haven?t paid much attention, this tax will affect Hatteras Island businesses and visitors also.
Earlier this year, at the request of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, the North Carolina General Assembly gave the county the ability to raise the current 1 percent occupancy tax by another 1 percent.
That would bring Dare County?s occupancy tax ? paid by renters of cottages, motel and hotel rooms, and other accommodations ? to 6 percent, the maximum allowed under state law.
In addition, renters of accommodations pay a 7.75 percent sales tax. The current occupancy and sales tax total is now 12.75 percent and would rise to 13.75 percent under the proposed increase.
The reason for the increase would be to add more money to a county fund for beach nourishment and to help our friends up north, specifically in Nags Head, restore their badly eroding beaches.
The commissioners have not voted yet on whether to levy the tax, but probably will before long.
And the increase has the support not only of the Dare commissioners but apparently other towns in the county and rental management companies.
Not everyone is happy with the occupancy tax increase, though no organized opposition has materialized. And that is probably partly because most islanders have been focusing on beach access and bridge issues.
However, Jeff Oden of Hatteras village, wrote a letter to the editor that was published in The Island Free Press on July 29.
Oden is not happy.
?As an oceanfront motel owner on Hatteras Island,? he wrote, ?I am writing this letter taking serious exception to the notion that I should require my patrons to sponsor my competition on the upper beaches (mainly Nags Head) by adding another 1 percent to my occupancy tax for the purpose of renourishing their beaches. And all of that ignores whether I believe in beach renourishment or not. The truth is I thought the county had put this to rest a few years back with the referendum vote, but that was obviously not the case.?
Oden went on to say that all Hatteras business owners should be objecting, whether they are in the hospitality business or not.
?Why, you ask? Well, first off there comes a point when people will say enough is enough, and since we are now going to be subject to the maximum occupancy tax allowed by the state, we may be there. Secondly, what happens to Hatteras Island if down the road we find an issue that requires us to raise needed monies for our own benefit? We won?t then be allowed to pass it on to our patrons because we are already taxed to the max — sponsoring the upper beaches. And finally, in this economy, many of our businesses have been marginalized as is and unable to raise our own rates (especially in Hatteras village since Isabel). Forget that now!?
Oden also doubts that Hatteras Island will ever share in the county?s beach nourishment fund, since both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service oppose nourishment ? and the two of them own all of the beaches on the island.
He has a point.
However, said Allen Burrus of Hatteras village, who is vice-chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, ?There are things you have to do to make a county work, and those people up there need beach nourishment.?
The people ?up there? in this case are the property owners in Nags Head, where shoreline erosion is a major problem. Other towns on the northern beaches are also grappling with erosion but none to the extent that Nags Head is.
That town, especially South Nags Head, took another beating in the northeaster last November.
Town officials have been struggling for years to get the funds and permits necessary and to get the support of the community to nourish beaches.
Dare County has had 1 percent of its 5 percent occupancy tax earmarked for beach nourishment for several years now. That has accumulated a pot of about $22 million for nourishing beaches.
Earlier this year, Nags Head made a bid for almost all of that money plus another 1 percent in occupancy taxes to fund its $36 million nourishment project along 10 miles of the town beaches.
This proposal was followed with several months of infighting and debate about who gets the $22 million and whether or not an increase in the occupancy tax was wise.
The short version of this story is that Nags Head got a good deal of the county fund.
The county agreed to fund half of the Nags Head project — $18 million ? and half of any future project by Kill Devil Hills.
Of the additional 1 percent occupancy tax, Nags Head would receive $2 million annually for five years to help retire debt and $1 million a year would be set aside for Kill Devil Hills. It is estimated that a 1 percent occupancy tax increase would raise about $3 to $3.5 million a year.
This deal means that Nags Head still has to raise another $10 million to get the job done.
The town proposes doing that by levying property owners east of Highway 12 a special assessment of 98 cents per $100 of evaluation over five years for a loan to cover the shortfall.
The proposal is a controversial one in the town. Some owners of property west of Highway 12 feel that that the town should not use tax money to enhance the value of oceanfront properties. On the other side, supporters of the $36 million project say that if Nags Head loses its oceanfront to erosion, there won?t be many businesses left.
The next step for the town is getting 50 percent of the property owners to sign a petition to proceed with the project. Of that 50 percent, the signers mustrepresent 66% of the assessed value of the property in the specialdistrict.
The town has obtained major state permits for the nourishment project, but still needs a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Allen Burrus says the county commissioners will not move to levy the 1 percent occupancy tax until Nags Head has its $10 million and all of its permits.
Burrus says that, while he doesn?t agree with beach nourishment the way that Nags Head has proposed to do it, he thinks that beach erosion is a countywide situation and a countywide problem, especially economically, and Hatteras Island is part of the county.
And Burrus notes that the county has helped Hatteras Island, most notably after Hurricane Isabel opened an inlet between Frisco and Hatteras in 2003 that was filled by pumping sand into the area and after a northeaster took out a portion of Highway 12 north of Rodanthe last November.
He also notes the efforts the county has made to help Hatteras Island watermen with its working waterman?s commission.
Then there was the $500,000 or so the county has spent in legal expenses in the fight to keep Hatteras beaches open.
Though it is true that all of the occupancy tax money earmarked for nourishment must be spent on beach building projects, Burrus thinks it is possible that Hatteras could profit with some projects down the road to nourish beaches, perhaps on the soundside of the island.
Burrus noted that he met with island property management companies, and they did not oppose the occupancy tax increase.
?I don?t think it will hurt business,? said Stewart Couch, president of Hatteras Realty. ?At some point, we will kill the golden egg, but we are not there yet.?
Couch noted that video of houses falling into the ocean in Nags Head is not good for business on the Outer Banks ? on the northern beaches or on Hatteras.
Couch and Burrus also note that the tax will not directly affect the pocketbooks of residents.
And Couch agrees with Burrus that the county has been instrumental in helping Hatteras after several storm events.
?There is just no other political way for this to come about,? Couch said. ?I believe in beach nourishment. If you believe in it, then you?ve got to start somewhere.?
Of course, some folks don?t believe in beach nourishment, don?t believe it will work, don?t believe it will survive the first big storm, and think that maintaining nourishment over the long run will involve a bottomless pit of money. Nor do they think it?s wise to invest $36 million in an experiment.
If Nags Head comes up with another $10 million and federal permits, we will probably find out the answer to many of these nagging questions.
Bobby Outten, Dare County manager and attorney, said the Board of Commissioners is required to have a public meeting with 10 days notice before the levying the additional 1 percent in occupancy tax.
So, Hatteras islanders and others will have another chance to weigh in, but it seems that this project has too much support to stop it at this point.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information on the debate about beach nourishments and taxes, go to The Outer Banks Voice, which has covered the issue all year in greater detail. Go to
http://outerbanksvoice.com/category/beach-nourishment/ to read the online newspaper?s coverage since the first of the year.
